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If you ask a metrologist you will get this answer. But from what I’ve heard from eu farmers are: Russian fertilisers and gas dependence have caused quite a blow
by danielscrubs 1y ago
If you ask a metrologist you will get this answer. But from what I’ve heard from eu farmers are: Russian fertilisers and gas dependence have caused quite a blow to the market, it will need time to normalise.
Not trying to downplay extreme weather though!
- boudin 1y agoThat's part of the equation for sure but extreme weather events have a massive impact where I live. Talking to producers, they are losing way more of their production way more frequently due to intense rain or dry events. As an exemple, someone who manages orchards was telling me that the norm now is to lose 1 year of harvest every 5 years when it was every 10 years 20 years ago. Talking with small scale organic veg growers who are less dependent on russian oil, managing weather events is the hardest part of their job. Currently, the soil is as dry as it usually is end of august where i am.
- worldsayshi 1y ago> the norm now is to lose 1 year of harvest every 5 years when it was every 10 years 20 years ago. That sounds apocalyptic given that these things have only just begun.
- bostik 1y ago> apocalyptic Bingo. Wars are already expanding, and the world is preparing for more. With food production suffering from climate change impacts, we are witnessing famine gaining ground in real time. The breed of politicians in power are doing their best to give pestilence a newfound hold on populace at large. And the fourth horseman is comfortably trotting in the wake of the other three.
- vidarh 1y agoIt's worth noting that while these dangers are real, they are largely economic, and so effectively a moral and political choice. Most production of most staple crops are higher than they have ever been, and still increasing most years. World bank data estimates for population growth is a 10% increase from 2020 to 2030, 26% from 2020 to 2050, and 42% between 2020 and 2100. OECD (FAO Agricultural Outlook 2021-2030) estimates agricultural production to increase by 1.4% per year for the decade, which translates to ~15%. So agricultural output is increasing faster than the population at this point despite the climate challenges. But this increase itself creates risks (e.g. soil degradation, pressure on water supply) that is compounded by climate risks and creates variability on a regional level that absolutely will be a massive problem even though it could be "easily" protected against. The famine risk largely comes down to pushing food out of economic reach of poor countries at points where local crops fail, and the very same economic conditions makes those countries less likely to be able to afford to maintain sufficient emergency stores. Of course, that there's food elsewhere that is just too expensive will be of no comfort to those who end up starving.
- boudin 1y agoDo you know if the agricultural production increase is driven by exploiting more land (e.g. taking over land from forest) or by increased productivity of the practice? Is it an increase in term of value or volume? Is it an increase of food production for human or raw agricultural output (which also include things like crops to produce ethanol, feed for cattle, etc...)?
- southernplaces7 1y ago>Do you know if the agricultural production increase is driven by exploiting more land (e.g. taking over land from forest) or by increased productivity of the practice? That would depend on the country in question, and in some cases it can be both, with more land being used while production per hectare (or acre) increases too. From wht I know of most developed countries, it's a case of steadily less land used, but much more productively than ever. For example, the United States today produces more food in absolute terms than at any time in its history (an increase of nearly 200% in the last 70 years alone), while land used for agriculture has at pretty much the same time steadily been decreasing since the mid-20th century. Forests are even growing back as a result, with total forest cover having been very gently increasing since 1910 (links below) https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/legacy_files/media/types/publication/field_pdf/forestfacts-2014aug-fs1035-508complete.pdf#:~:text=By%201910%2C%20the%20area%20of%20forest%20land,total%20land%20area%20of%20the%20United%20States. https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/legacy_files/med... https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/look-agricultural-productivity-growth-united-states-1948-2017#:~:text=From%201948%20to%202017%2C%20TFP,almost%20none%20of%20output%20growth. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/look-agricultural-...
- boudin 1y agoSorry for pushing the logic but this doesn't account for the land, labour and resources required for the input which replaced former, less technical ways. How much is required to produce the seeds, seedlings, chemicals, energy and machines that weren't used before? In a really old approach farms tended to be fairly independant (e.g. producing their own fertilizers and using animal traction, animal who lived on the farm). This used land and labour which was accounted for but seems unaccounted for in more modern practice. In my opinion this underestimate the land and labour cost and creates a biased vision of the actual efficiency of modern agriculture.
- southernplaces7 1y agoWhat a pile of nonsense you've just said. Our human society produces far more food than is even necessary to feed the entire human population. We produce so much that absolutely vast amounts are regularly discarded as refuse. Climate is not creating any real problems with food production that couldn't be remedied with a whole bunch of economic, logistical and practical solutions long before humanity ever reached genuine food shortages due to climate. Enough with this nearly religious forcing of a specific narrative. Also, famine isn't gaining ground in real time for the above reason, or at all for that matter. In absolute terms, more people today eat better than ever, and in nearly any case you care to look at of people starving, it's universally due to some regional political bullshittery instead of climate change. (case in point, children going hungry in Gaza right now) Temporary, shifting price rises on food are not the same thing as famine conditions by the way. Incredible how some people here just pull random claims out of their ass because they want them to be true as opposed to actually finding out if they have anything to do with reality.
- arbitrary_name 1y ago>Climate is not creating any real problems with food production that couldn't be remedied... I interpret this and GPs comment as the same: we have ways to solve these issues technically, but currently lack the other dimensions (trust, collaboration, incentives). As climate change adds risk, cost, and complexity, we are increasingly further from a solution, not closer. Your aggressive and dismissive rhetoric provides little in the way of substantive evidence or reasoning, either.
- worldsayshi 1y ago> remedied with a whole bunch of economic, logistical and practical solutions I worry that many of our solutions entail increasing exploitation on some other corner of the world. Like opening more mines for fertilizers. Eventually easily accessible fertilizers will run out too.
- mike_hearn 1y agoWhere do you live? Rain and dry has not become more intense in most parts of the world, so local climate change of that sort isn't driven by CO2. For example, in the UK rainfall levels haven't changed since recordings began, there's no increase in outlier events either. A doubling of crop failure rates in just 20 years is definitely not something that should be immediately blamed on global climate change. It's possible there's some local climate change for non-CO2 reasons. In 20 years there's been just 0.2 degrees of average warming, which is barely detectable (CIs on weather stations are often much larger!)
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago> For example, in the UK rainfall levels haven't changed since recordings began, there's no increase in outlier events either. The UK is in a peculiar place for weather patterns though - we're pretty much on the cusp of five different weather systems, so we're kind of used to changeable/outlier weather events. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24305230 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24305230
- mike_hearn 1y agoBritain has very stable weather compared to a lot of places. Not much difference in temps between summer and winter, no monsoon seasons, no hurricanes etc.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y agoI would consider it "mild" weather rather than "stable". We don't tend to get extremes, but we do get fluctuations over the course of a day. I expect things will be different if the Gulf Stream shifts and plunges Britain into a mini ice age.
- boudin 1y agoAh the propaganda troll... Talking about one thing and trying to deny it using another. That's lame. I'm talking about events not average. I'm also talking about facts. And if you really are in the uk you would know there has been lot of heatwave, intense rain and thunderstorm events in the uk the past few years. Just to push back on your bullshit, you can have the same rain yearly avearge as every other year and have no rain during the whole year but one. Your average would look good but your agriculture certainly not. Go bother someone else...
- everyone 1y agoClimate change will cause more wars also.
- astahlx 1y agoI see the war in Ukraine as one of them. They have huge areas of farm land, valuable in times where climate change makes farming impossible in other regions. And many big companies and countries are already invested in there. You can already see how dependent some countries are on this base on the different price spikes. (While the question remains if farm products should be traded on stock markets).
- phtrivier 1y agoI can also be interpreted as an "energy-transition" war, given how the territories captured by Russia "just happen" to contain the mines... [1] So if we stop buying oil & gas from Russia, and instead buy batteries made in part out of "Russian" minerals from Eastern-Ukraine... yaay progress, I guess ? [1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-ukraines-mineral-resources/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-ukraines-mineral-res...
- jajko 1y agoThere are massive oil, gas and metal reserves on eastern Ukraine. Sure, russia has those too but as a nation they are the very definition of greedy. When you have parts of their mafia state fighting for a bigger grab of money and power, you end up with such wars.
- vidarh 1y agoI see the war in Ukraine as more of a war for people that has gone badly wrong. Russia (the same applies to Ukraine) has birth rates far below replacement, and faces total demographic collapse if they can't reverse it. Russia also won't need more farmland. Russia has far more land. Especially as climate change if anything is likely to open up regions further north where farming has not been practical - in that respect, Russia is better placed that most other countries (including Ukraine) to see off the worst effects of climate change -, but also because their crashing population will reduce their agricultural demand. Doesn't mean Putin doesn't also want the land and resources, but if taking over Ukraine were to shore up Russia's population and buy them decades to solve the demographic problem, I think that would be far more economically valuable to him. See e.g. also the large-scale abduction of children from the occupied areas, that while a classic way to try to destroy an enemy is also a move that "makes sense" (though of course reprehensible) to someone who is worried about the very perpetuation of his people. Of course, then he failed to get the quick win, and the potential win is literally bleeding away on the battlefield, to the point where there's every reason to question whether Russia will survive the after-effects of this as a country 20-30 years down the line.
- astahlx 1y agoWe should not rely on gas for producing mineral fertilizers: https://www.carbonbrief.org/fertiliser-emissions-could-be-cut-to-one-fifth-of-current-levels-by-2050/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/fertiliser-emissions-could-be-cu...
- lazide 1y agoShould == I wish.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 1y agoA metrologist is a person who studies and practices the science of measurement.